Blog

The food industry is notorious for its use of sugar and hidden sweeteners to enhance food and drink flavors . This can potentially cause sugar addiction. From your breakfast cereal to your favourite frozen pizza, sugar is added to almost every processed food on the market today. By processed food I mean most foods that …

Continue reading “Is the food industry causing an epidemic of sugar addiction ? “

I often get asked by patients and colleagues about the new ‘miracle drug’ for weight loss Semaglutide (Ozempic) . In this blog I would like to share my views and concerns regarding semaglutide. Semaglutide, a medication originally used to treat Type 2 diabetes, has been approved for weight loss in adults who have obesity or …

Continue reading “Semaglutide (Ozempic) A miracle drug for weight loss ? “

Last weekend, Raquel and I attended the first international Food Addiction Conference in Bristol, hosted by Public Health Collaboration and IFA. It was an opportunity to meet in person a lot of our peers and some of our heroes. We were helping at the Food Addiction Institute stand as we are now both members of …

Continue reading “International Food Addiction Conference Bristol 19th-20th of May”

Over the years, old fashion myths or misconceptions about nutrition have been perpetuated by the media, magazines and even some health care professionals. Here are some examples. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day Previous studies have suggested that eating breakfast might be linked to maintaining good health and a healthy weight, but …

Continue reading “5 Nutrition and Health Myths”

People tell me that they do not use add sugar to their drinks anymore, that they avoid juice and fizzy drinks …But where is all the sugar coming from? Most people eat sugar in the form of carbohydrate. This can lead to problems like gaining weight, poor diabetes control, overeating, sugar cravings, binge eating. Let’s …

Continue reading “But Doctor, I don’t……”

I love Bridget Jones. I read all the books and when I heard that Réene Zellweger and Colin Firth were going to co-star the films I couldn’t hide my excitement. They are both perfectly cast. The books and films tell the story of Bridget Jones, a single woman in her thirties. The story tells the …

Continue reading “Don’t eat your emotions”

Esther Helga Gudmundsdottir is a pioneer in the field of food addiction treatment. Once an opera singer and opera teacher, Esther was battling food addiction for most of her adult life until she discovered a twelve step program that changed her life. Once in recovery, she open one of the first food addiction treatment programs …

Continue reading “Esther Helga Gudmundsdottir, the Icelandic pioneer”

An addictive personality can make addiction more likely. Addictions can come in a wide range of forms, including food, drugs, alcohol, gambling, exercise, pornography, shopping, internet and more. These substance or behaviours can give a ‘high’ or a ‘kick’ if repeated often enough. They turn into pleasurable activities that help the addict cope with stress, …

Continue reading “What is an addictive personality?”

I was a very spoilt teenager. My mum, being a housewife, never asked us to do house chores or shopping or cooking. At home, my job was to study, get good grades, come back at a reasonable hour and just enjoy family life. I loved it. But it didn’t teach me anything about living independently. …

Continue reading “Mum’s Pisto”

WHAT IS REAL FOOD? At the most basic level, our diets should be made up of REAL FOOD such as fish, seafood, meat, non-starchy vegetables, eggs, natural nuts, legumes and unprocessed dairy like full fat natural yoghurt and cheese. Many of the foods in our supermarkets and fast food outlets are not “real food”. They …

Continue reading “What is real food?”

When my 15 year old daughter came from school one day very excited about a new poem they were analysing, I knew it was going to be something special. I had only seen her this excited once, when she was reading Macbeth. Instead of explaining what the poem was about she decided to read it. …

Continue reading “Eat Me by Patience Agbabi”

In November 2021, a renowned former Labour politician, Tom Watson, talked about his struggles with an eating disorder and food addiction. In 2018, Mr Watson made it to the front pages of UK national newspaper when he announced that he reversed Type 2 Diabetes by losing weight on a low carbohydrate/keto diet and becoming increasingly …

Continue reading “Food Addiction in the News”

Thankfully, the juicing obsession of the 80s disappeared a few years ago but there is still plenty of people that think that juicing fruit or vegetables is good for their health, in fact, some of them think it is extremely good for you. I can’t count the number of patients (most of them living with …

Continue reading “To Juice or Not to Juice, that is the question”

 New Year and already thinking about starting a new diet? How many have you tried to date? Want to stop obsessing about food and weight once and for all? Why not try something different this year?  Dieting is only a temporary solution for a very complex problem that doesn’t resolve with just “eating less and …

Continue reading “50% OFF Food Addiction and Medical Assessment”

Does food addiction exist, or it is just an excuse for overeating and “always being on a diet”? How can we have an addiction to something as necessary as eating? In my 20 years of clinical experience, I have never seen so many people suffering from chronic illnesses, obesity and being overweight. I speak of …

Continue reading “Food Addiction, Myth or Reality?”

Bitten Jonsson is a world-renowned trainer of Sugar Addiction Counsellors, with nearly 40 years of experience in addiction medicine and treatment. Based in Sweden, Bitten is a registered nurse, addiction specialist and authorized provider of SUGAR® / ADDIS® diagnostic assessments and training. Her expertise spans the full range of addiction screening and diagnostic assessment to …

Continue reading “Bitten Jonsson, the Swedish warrior”

Do you weigh yourself very often? Have you become a slave of the scales and your weight dictates how you are going to feel the rest of the day or the week? A failure or someone who is meeting agreed targets? You are not alone, there are many people who follow this daily ritual and …

Continue reading “Don’t be a slave of the scales”

I’ve always liked routine and being brought up in Spain, food is a very important part of our life. Since I can remember, I had the same thing to eat for breakfast: what we call in the UK “French bread”, I normally had it with olive oil and salt. It was delicious and I never …

Continue reading “Breaking Denial”

Dr Vera Tarman is a family doctor based in Toronto. She is the medical director of Renascent, an addiction treatment centre that until recently was one of the few inpatient treatment centres for food addiction in the world. Dr Tarman specialises in the innovative field of food addiction, she runs workshops, lectures, and other events …

Continue reading “Food Junkies: The Truth about Food Addiction by Vera Tarman”